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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Valentine's Cookies and Getting a Toddler to "help" in the Kitchen

This is really less a post about how to make a sugar cookie, cut it our with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, and frost it, and more about how I get all my kids in on the kitchen action. I like to find age appropriate kitchen jobs for each kid.

So, the "big" ones (3 and 5) usually just sit on the counters. The baby, now 15 months old, is SO not to be trusted to stay on a counter without falling off, so she gets a special spot. A Learning Tower.

The Little Partners Learning Tower comes in a variety of colors now (mine is 4 years old and still going strong) so you can get it in red, or green, or something to match your kitchen. It's a total space-eating monster, and those little feet at the bottom that stick out to prevent it from tipping always catch my toes, but I could not do anything in the kitchen without it. All those rails on the sides keep toddlers inside, and bring them up to the right height for helping. Standing on a stool just doesn't cut it if you are under 3 in my experience.

7 comments:

These photos - with your older daughter on the counter? - while all your text is about the learning tower? Well, it totally made my morning. I'll go to school drop off giggling just a bit, with a smile on my face! ;-) (And just to be clear - my older kids sit on the counter all the time, too)

So cute! My daughter loves to help in the kitchen and my son loves to sit on counters {not so much with the helping yet}. The cookies turned out really cute. I love that they aren't perfect but really look like the kids helped.

About

I'm a Harvard-trained architect, now staying at home with 4 young children. I designed and built my dream house, then did it all again with a modern vacation house. I'm putting my passion for design, food and family to work. I built the dream, but I still live in reality.